His
father was reading a newspaper at the end of the lawn, and he walked
across to him.
Sir Tancred looked up from his paper, and said with a sigh:
"I'm afraid there's no birthday present for you, Tinker."
"That's all right, sir," said Tinker cheerfully.
Father and son made an admirable pair, a pair of an extraordinary
distinction. Reckless pride and sorrow had impressed on Sir Tancred's
dark, sombre face much of the look of Lucifer, Son of the Morning;
Tinker was very fair with close-cropped golden curls clustering round
his small head, features as finely cut as those of his father, sunny
blue eyes, lips curved like Cupid's bow, and the air of a seraph. The
name had clung to him from its perfect inappropriateness. A tinker is
but a gritty sight, and Hildebrand Anne had grown up, to the eye, an
angel child, of a cleanliness uncanny in a small boy.
"Even if there were anything to buy in Farndon-Pryze, our fortunes are
at a low ebb," said Sir Tancred with faint sorrow.
Tinker heaved a sympathetic sigh, and said again, "Oh, that's all
right, sir."
"And the papers offer no suggestions for a new campaign," and Sir
Tancred, looking with some contempt at the score of grey, pink, yellow,
and green sheets which littered the grass around his long cane chair,
fanned himself with his panama; for, though the month was May, the
morning was hot.
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